‘Your job is not to coach people’: Boss tells front desk employee to stop helping customers with their mistakes, regrets it when chaos ensues with incorrectly filed forms

If you have an unreasonable boss, do you comply with their requests or challenge them?

The most convenient move is to usually go along with anything your boss asks of you, even if it's inefficient. Bosses, however, oftentimes are not even sure about what they're asking or the kind of consequences their decisions may have. 

A Redditor u/Cherrykissymint has a boss who made her to do something that only made everything more complicated. She worked at a front desk, and people brought documents to her all day long. Since we all know bureaucracy works in mysterious ways, most of those forms had mistakes, so she took the time to help them correct them and send them in properly. However, her boss was annoyed by that, so he told her not to do it anymore. Why? Probably due to some micromanaging powertrip duties. Suddenly, the office was full of confused people standing there, occupying space and not knowing what to do. 

 Do bosses even know what their employees are actually doing for work? They're hardly ever with them, so it's not easy for them to keep track of everything that happens in the office when they're away. It's not necessarily out of malice, but sometimes they might give instructions that do not work the way they expected. Sometimes you'll be able to state your reasons as to why that won't work, and they'll listen. Other times, you'll have to comply and let them see the results like you are gentle parenting. 

So, do you think bosses should listen to their employees more often?